Perfect Portrait
by magicscalpel
Summary: “If you’re so keen on a pretty picture, then why don’t you take my place and I’ll take my leave?” CainGlitch friendship.


Kinda my first time writing in a year. My brain's rusty, as are my fingers.

Being that I live in a dorm with no sci-fi channel, I had to take Tin Man at home and wait AGES to see it. I cried a lot. Alright, I didn't cry a lot. Maybe once or twice.

So I, like so many others, immediately fell in love with Glitch. This is mostly because I am plagued by terrible memory problems to where I can't even remember whether I'm on the second or third floor after stepping off the stairs. Sometimes I can't remember my own birthday. So when I met Glitch on my television screen, I was all "Hey, buddy:D" Plus, Alan Cumming is my inspiration.  
I blatantly ignored all plot holes, since those exist in every sci-fi/fantasy program EVER MADE.

Note: Monsieur Gallivant is a one-dimensional character I created based off of a hideous nutcracker I won in some sort of Chinese present swap game. God, he was ugly. But I felt sorry for the poor thing, and while people begged others to swap gifts with them, I held him in my arms and gifted him with a name… and crushed popcorn in his mouth. I love Monsieur Gallivant. Too bad I forgot him at my friend's house. (: Oops.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything but that ugly painter man blahdadadada.

* * *

The lavish halls were polished to perfection, not a single scuff marring the swirls of multi-colored marble as they danced and twirled from floor to pillar to ceiling to wall. A brilliant artist sat erect in his chair with a thumb outstretched to supposedly measure dimensions of his model's features.

"Marvelous, now just lift your chin a bit more, back erect, perfect! Halt and cease all movement." A heavy sigh billowed from Cain's nostrils, which he struggled to hold from flaring in aggravation from being forced into such a time-consuming and ultimately meaningless matter as having his portrait painted. He complied with great reluctance and a barely noticed roll of his eyes. Monsieur Gallivant nodded his approval, his dramatic beret bobbing with him, and continued with heavily practiced brush strokes.

DG, the Queen, as well as Ambrose stood to the side as not to be captured in his handcrafted moment of silent torture. A glance showed Ambrose's impassive face cracking into an encouraging, face splitting grin accompanied by a thumbs up. Even with his mind back where it belonged, he was still every bit Glitch as before. The man merely had a tendency to swap from the hard working inventor's calm and collected façade to that forgetful twitch and wide-eyed youthful idiocy that was all Glitch. Through it all, they both maintained that beautiful face of beaming wide-eyed recollection, a face so beautiful because it meant that Glitch—Ambrose was slowly but surely regaining memories that had been jumbled and tinkered with through hours of intense brain surgery.

"Tsk, tsk! Discontinue the craning of that neck, Mister Tin Man! What would they think of you in the future when they gaze upon your picture and see that the supposedly fearless and powerful hero of the O.Z., Wyatt Cain, was too busy daydreaming of flowers and pretty things to have his portrait painted correctly by even the best?"

The posh man's rambling reprimand scratched through one ear and out the other. He tipped his head in Monsieur Needs-To-Shut-The-Hell-Up's direction and proceeded to tap his fingers against the faded brown hat he held in his lap, further irking the painter as he attempted to immortalize the smug upturned lip.

"I never asked for this, y'know," Cain said, barely catching the blurs in his peripheral vision that were giggling undoubtedly at him.

"Aw, c'mon, Cain. It's not so bad, you're just being a big impatient baby." DG drawled to tease his nerves, having already had the pleasure of witnessing her own portrait being placed respectively beside Ambrose and her mother.

Cain grunted only to acknowledge the fact that he was not ignoring them out of spite, which would have been deeply disrespectful in the presence of the Queen, who seemed to be enjoying herself almost as much as Ambrose and DG. On second thought, ignoring their asses seemed like a dandy idea.

He was pulled out of his reverie by fingers digging into the corners of his mouth and yanking them in directions they were never meant to go. The skin tasted of smoke and waffles… and only Glitch was dense enough to handle his waffles by hand at breakfast much to Ambrose's chagrin.

Cain sputtered at the intrusion of his personal space. There was a nasally snicker coming from behind him as Glitch lifted his lips into a parody of a smile, "C'mon, Cain! Smile like you mean it!" Cain did not react well. It was times like these that he hated the wide-eyed youthful idiocy that was Glitch.

"Oh dear," The Queen exclaimed with a hand to her chest, but whether her outburst was from amusement or horror at her advisor's behavior was beyond him.

"Hey guys, horseplay's for outside and off hours. Knock it off!" DG's words did not pierce the bubble that surrounded Ambrose and Cain in their argument.

Behind his canvas, Monsieur Gallivant was staring with his mouth agape, witnessing the sputters of "Get the hell off!" and "I just want your portrait to look nice!" which graduated into "Smile for yourself!" "Have a heart, I just wanna help!" "I don't need help looking like an idiot!" "You've only got one face, what's the harm in putting it to use?" "If you're so keen on a pretty picture, then why don't _you_ take my place and I'll take my leave?"

Monsieur Gallivant jumped from his chair. "That's perfect!"

"What?!" Cain and Ambrose snapped simultaneously from their interrupted wrestling match on the floor, Ambrose's fingers angrily stretching Cain's face and Cain's palm pressed into Ambrose's forehead.

Monsieur Gallivant strutted from behind his workstation, paintbrush still in hand with a dab of peach-tinted paint threatening to drip from the tip. He wasted no time tucking the brush into his breast pocket to give his hands free reign.

"Now you just sit back here, and you stand here, hand there, wonderful! Now give me a true smile… you just do what you think is natural. Good? Good!"

Both Ambrose and Cain were left in a completely new position, and to be honest, both the Queen and DG thought it fit.

Ambrose sat straight in the chair Cain's behind once occupied, angled slightly to the side. He wore a careless smile plastered across his face that in no way resembled the stuffy straight-laced frown, which adorned the wall already. Cain stood close behind him, almost flush against his back, hands resting upon his shoulders in a manner that swore protection and friendship. His hat was not atop his head but in Ambrose's lap, safely tucked beneath his folded hands.

It was the perfect portrait, Monsieur Gallivant exclaimed excitedly to the Queen and DG, who greatly approved. As he sat back down to begin anew, Ambrose's dimples deepened as he stared ahead, "Well, it's not what I had in mind, but with me in the mix it'll sure be one heck of a picture. Whaddya think, Cain? Cain?"

In the moment of being immortalized in such a natural environment, Cain couldn't help but smile. Monsieur Gallivant did not miss a single stroke in capturing that, neither did he forget to angle the blue eyes slightly downward in an admiring gaze to the head of the Queen's most trusted advisor… and Cain's most trusted friend.

It was the perfect portrait.


End file.
